


on the outside (looking in)

by Skyepilot



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Coulson being supportive, Coulson getting flustered, Coulson's in love with Daisy, Daisy understanding others better than herself, F/M, Friendship, Humor, Leadership, Male-Female Friendship, Relationship Problems, Supportive Relationships, Trust, Unrequited Love, low-key flirting, mentions of Egg, mentions of other relationships, people working through their issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-18
Updated: 2016-03-18
Packaged: 2018-05-27 09:36:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 911
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6279241
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skyepilot/pseuds/Skyepilot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post 3x12.  Ficlet set somewhere in the near future; Daisy asks Coulson's advice about getting involved with a subordinate.</p>
            </blockquote>





	on the outside (looking in)

“It wasn’t my best moment, okay?”

Now that things have come to a head, it’s more than just the need to vent, the need for advice.

It’s him.

She trusts him.

“It’s not the first time it’s happened,” he says patiently, serious, after mulling it over.  He looks like someone put a rock on his chest, instead of hers.

“He’s my subordinate,” she reminds him, wanting to make sure she’s detailed her crimes to the fullest.  In the orphanage it was what they called a confession.

“And if certain protocols were in place,” he admits, “You’d be in trouble.  But they’re not. “And suddenly looks down at his feet crossed in front of him.

It makes her a bit exasperated.  What is he looking at?  This is serious.

“Phil, I need _advice_ ,” she replies, lifting her hands and starting to move towards him.

He jolts out of his lean against the desk and backs himself up against it as she gets closer.

“From me?”

“Yes,” she huffs, hoping she doesn’t sound whiney, but dammit, this is not the time for him to tell her that she can figure it out on her own.

“I don’t know,” he begins quietly, shaking his head as she nods knowingly, “I’ve never-“

“ _Never?_ ” she asks, enunciating the word with pure disbelief - okay, maybe not total disbelief.

“No,” he goes on, his eyes getting bigger.  “Always…outside of SHIELD.”

“But, you’ve seen it happen and the consequences,” she presses, wanting confirmation, drawn towards his answer enough to take yet another step in his direction.

“Uh huh,” he agrees, his jaw twitching as he watches her notice and her expression change.

“You wanted to,” she says, with a tilt of her head. “And never did.”

He swallows, intensely, and his mouth opens but nothing comes out.

Turning away from him to give him some breathing room, she starts to wonder aloud. “Who was it? Some big crush on a Level 8, right?”

“Not exactly,” he says, from behind her and she follows the movement over her shoulder, like he’s trying to escape her or something, getting back around behind his desk.

Must be where he feels safe.

Just like Price gave him that familiarity, even though she didn’t really see eye-to-eye with him at all.

“Too bad you didn’t,” she half-grins.  “You could be the one giving me advice.”

He stares at her for a long moment before he goes on.

“It…complicates things,” he says, putting his fingers against the desk. “During the missions. When you have to send someone into a fight that you love.”

“He doesn’t even want to go out in the field,” she tells him, sitting up on the corner of his desk as he sits down in the chair. “It’s like he’s putting in the smallest amount of effort.  Enough to get _by_.”

“I’m sorry,” he says frowning. “We were talking about protocols, right?”

“You don’t like him, do you?” she sighs, twisting her fingers together.  It just adds another layer of complication to this.  And it stings for some reason that them being that close isn’t even a motivator at all.

It stings more the realization that she thought it might.

“Permission to speak freely?” he asks, sitting back in the chair.

She glares at him a little more seriously now, wondering what he means by that.

“Sure,” she says, curiosity piqued.  He raises his eyebrows to be sure. “ _Yes._ ”

“Why?”

It would be so easy to ask him the same thing about Price, but this isn’t about him.  It’s about her.

“Can you be _more_ specific?” she answers back, starting to line up the small objects on top of his desk in a row, starting with some loose paperclips.

“You knew he wanted nothing to do with SHIELD.  That he didn’t want to help.  He rejected that opportunity every single time.”

His hand lands on one of the pens she’s touching, halting her sliding it into the row she’s created.

“Until he couldn’t.  Yeah,” she admits, taking her hand back.  “But being hunted by the ATCU wasn’t his fault.”

“It wasn’t yours, either,” he tells her. “And neither is this.”

She’s trying to take in his words, disbelieving them almost immediately, but then draws her eyes along to desk up to meet his.

“How is this _not_ my fault?”

“You can’t make him be a SHIELD agent, Daisy.  He has to want it.”

“You never gave me this little speech,” she mentions, standing up again.

“I supported you, but I never had to push you. I was just trying to keep up.”

He gives her a little smile, looking at her like he hasn’t in a long time.  She feels a pang of nostalgia, or is it familiarity?

“You do alright,” she teases. “At keeping up.”

She swears he lights up a little at that, like it’s all he needed to hear.  Funny that she feels so much the same, how he always knows the right thing-

“I’ll take your word for it,” he says, meeting her eyes as she turns back over her shoulder to look at him again.

“You should,” she says, stopping right in the door, touching her hand on its frame. “Then I could give _you_ some advice.”

“I’ll think on it.”

His eyes follow her thoughtfully as she exits.

Then he sits back in his chair, and leans his head back against the rest.

He picks a spot on the ceiling.

And he does.

 


End file.
